A Change Of Armour
by Garmonbozia
Summary: Of unbirthdays, melty Flesh wives and a mysterious suitcase - a little tale about Rory and the Doctor, right before Demon's Run.


Here's a little story, just between you and I.

I tell a lot of stories. Most of them, now that I think about it, are about me. Now that I think about _that_, it sounds arrogant. Self-centred. It isn't, I've just been around an awfully long time and done lots of awfully interesting things to tell stories about. And they're so much fun to tell, and to share. It's like bringing somebody into the experience. Which is useful to me, given that a lot of the people I shared the experiences with to begin with are elsewhere. Or gone.

This story isn't actually about me, really. It's about one of them. One of the people who are elsewhere, or…

This is a story about a man named Rory Williams, who was occasionally known as Mr Pond, or Roranicus, or the Last Centurion. Or 'mate', sometimes. It's his birthday, y'know. Not here and now, as far as I know, but somewhere in the universe, and if you don't think of time as a linear-progression like a strip of celluloid film but as a series of moments all existing at once, like a flickbook more than a movie, but I digress. I am telling you that it is his birthday only to justify the fact that I am thinking of him. Entirely unwarranted, triggered by nothing at all, I am thinking of Rory today. Fondly, it should be said. I am thinking of a story and it is making my smile. Can't be bad to that, can you?

And what you can do is share it. It's like being there all over again. So I hope you don't mind if I tell you a brief little story, so that I and we all might smile at it.

…Actually, just before I begin, let me say something else. I've been avoiding it. Didn't want to say it, but it's genuinely making me twitch now, and so I must. It is simply this; _rorystory. Rorystoryrorystoryrorystory, _there, I've done it, now it's out of my system, now I can forget it. Rorystory. Finished. Promise I am.

One more for the road, _rorystory_. There we go.

The twitching has stopped.

Let me set the scene. Was at the console recalibrating the central command terminal of a Cyberman space station so that I could make it go boom-bang-a-bang, and mere days earlier Amelia had melted into a big squishy pool of white Flesh. It's not exactly 'once upon a time', I know. It's hardly a promising opening. As a matter of fact, the Roman in question was looking rather down in the mouth. Hard to blame him. Despite past successes with wives made of melty puddles (well, concrete), this one hadn't quite worked out. The real Amelia was out there somewhere, as was my as-yet-unborn wife.

And a rather depressing time was being had by all.

But something very important had slipped my mind. "Oh!" I said sharply, for a sharp 'oh' is the standard Earth human noise of remembering a forgotten thing, "Rory, I almost forgot." This was a lie. I _had_ forgotten, but only for a moment. "I've had a brainwave."

"Something to do with the plan?" he asked.

"Naturally."

"Not like when you had that brainwave about using frogs as intelligence agents by borrowing the schematics of the Cybermats?"

"…No." I forgave him for that. He was under a lot of stress. And it had been a rather silly brainwave altogether, so I forgave him and tore a page out of a copy of Alice In Wonderland I found trapped amongst some wires under the console. It had always been there, or at least since I got it off Lewis. A first edition, Amy's favourite. I'd always meant to give it to her and just never found a moment for it.

The moment Amy vanished was the moment I concluded that, if one lives in and out of the vortex as I do, then it is always everybody's birthday somehow, and if you have a gift you ought to give it and not worry about ceremony or celebration. I tore out one of the blank back leaves and wrote down some directions on it. Rory's trip through the Tardis ought to have been relatively short. It only got longer because I decided to include a detour that would take him down the helter-skelter at least once. He wasn't in the mood for it, but you try staying grumpy when you're eight turns down and ten to go.

"Go to this room," I said, "and fetch up the green suitcase with the brass clasps. Careful, because there's one with silver clasps, but it's brass."

"I'll manage," he muttered. Took the directions from me and took off.

Now, remember earlier in the tale, when I forgave Rory for a minor transgression? You ought to, it wasn't very far back. Go and recap if you must. It's important, because now you must forgive me for a similar trespass. You must forgive me for saying this, but it was much, much, _much_, oh my stars, _how much_, easier to concentrate on my precise and very delicate and let's-not-forget-quite-explosive work without him brooding in the corner. By the time he got back I was all but done, and had parked up nice and cosy to have a flip through Alice.

Mad Hatter, by the way. He was my idea. The Rev came up with the March Hare, but the Hatter was mine.

"Unbirthday," I said, when I heard his steps approaching. "That's the word. That's the thought I arrived at independently, all by myself."

"You can't be serious," Rory said. Muttered, again, actually. I didn't want to repeat myself, but he was still muttering.

"No, really, I was just thinking about how it's always your birthday or mine or River's or-"

"Not what I meant."

He had reached me by then, and dropped the green suitcase at my feet. "Ah," I said mildly, for a mild 'ah' is the traditional Earth human sound of new understanding, "You peeked."

"Tell me you meant the case with the silver clasps. I don't mind going back down there. I've got ten minutes to kill, I'm sure."

"Well, kill them getting changed."

He folded his arms, this dear hero of ours, and stood resolute, immovable. He didn't understand, he said. He said if I could give him one good understandable reason he'd do it without another word and do it happily.

A challenge I was more than willing to accept.

"What's in that case," I told him, "represents one of the bravest, the most incredible, the most inspiring acts of love, loyalty and devotion that-"

"That I don't remember. And which would probably be a _bit_ traumatic if I did."

"Well, yes, but-"

"-_And_ did you or did you not _formerly_ reason with me that a piece of clothing has no power by itself and that all human endeavour is born of head and heart alone? That's a direct quote, by the way."

"Don't tip your head at me; I get cold in the shadow of your nose. And we only had _that_ little talk because Amy really did want you to stop wearing those Spiderman pyjamas."

He shrugged then, and brought his head self-consciously back to centre, a little nod of acceptance. He had long since given up those pyjamas by then. Time and distance had given him perspective. He saw now just how disturbed his poor missus had been.

For those of you who have heard certain other tales and are now wondering, the answer is no. No, River never got me to give up my jim-jams with the stars on them, alright?

So there I stood, defeated in my first argument, but undeterred. I had more for him.

"Think," I told him, "of the effect on the enemy. You can't show up in jeans and a t-shirt on the stunning backdrop of a Cyberman outpost going kabam. You'll make an impact. You'll be scary." And then, inspired, with Spiderman still swinging around my head, "Like Batman."

He thought about that one. As soon as he unfolded his arms, I knew I was making headway. "That's whole thing about criminals being a cowardly and superstitious bunch, you mean?"

"What does Amy see in a man who can quote these things?"

"For the first eighteen years of our lives, nothing. Lot of time to learn things to quote." The closest he'd come to a joke in all that time. Then, finally, blessedly, he deigned to sit down next to me. Touched the suitcase with his foot, "I'm still not wearing it."

"But…! But 'cowardly and superstitious', though!"

"Cybermen don't feel those things, though."

I can't quite describe to you the noise of rage and defeat that escaped me at that moment. I put my head back against the chair and stared up into the far distant ceilings of the console room, thinking and thinking, and pausing to think that some rotating panels of Gallifreyan might be a welcome addition to the Old Girl's next makeover, and thinking again of something else to say to him. In the interim, Rory took the book from my hand, carefully uncrumpled his page of directions and smoothed it back into place against the back cover.

I should stress, there was nothing on that page. Just one of the blanks you sometimes find at the back of books. I'm sure humans have come up with some reason to justify it. Like standardizing how bendy a banana can be. If you managed to make that sound sensible, you can do it for anything. It was just one of those empty little gaps, but it belonged there, and that's where he was putting it.

Afterward he sighed and sat forward. Took the case by the handle and dragged it close. Touched the clasps without opening them. "Go on," he said. "Have one more go."

Just one.

It had to be good. I had to make it count. I asked for a little thinking time and he gave it gladly. So I screwed up all my thoughts, and whittled them down to a few. From these few, I chose the very choicest.

"Alright, I've got one."

"Let's hear it."

"Are you ready?"

"Fire away, Doctor."

"You should get changed _because_… if your wife was here, she would _love_ to wear a pleated leather skirt and red leggings. Wouldn't even have to _ask_ her."

A moment of silence. For Amy, of course. Then a splutter. The beginnings of a laugh and, when I joined in, it grew, and we were crippled by the time he popped the clasps.

Rory flipped the case open. A green one, with brass clasps. I knew that because it had been the only case I could find the right shape and size to securely hold the gleaming golden breastplate of the Last Centurion.

"They're not leggings," he told me. "They're _braccae_."

"Thought you didn't remember?" I said. He didn't answer that. In the end, I nudged him. "I win. Go and put your braccae on."

"Yeah," he smiled, and picked up the case, "Alright."


End file.
